


Tea and Antipathy

by Anonymous



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 12:41:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13764405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A young Gertrude and Mary meet at the Magnus Institute.





	Tea and Antipathy

People have Gertrude Robinson pegged as someone who’s never really devoted themselves to sensual pleasure. This is a strange assumption on their part; a misunderstanding of what the word sensual means, divorced from its sexual element. Gertrude enjoys gratifying her senses in many ways; the smell of new books, the glide of her pen across a new notebook, or a cup of tea, indulgently sweetened with condensed milk. Sometimes all three at once. Gertrude has never been open about her private life which leads people to believe that she doesn’t have one. Never had one. The turnover at the Institute is enough that people only see her in glimpses. Once she turns forty she becomes the lonesome spinster figure, down in the Archives, who only lives for filing and tea and sensible ham sandwiches. It was exactly the future that her colleagues, lost in the midst of time and memory, had pegged for her. Gertrude never minded. She wrote her own story and if it happened to fit someone else’s narrative she didn’t mind. 

Of course there are aberrations in every narrative and exceptions to every rule. While other people her age mutter about the return on the miniskirt, she indulges herself with a brief glance and a quiet smile, thinking not of the current wearer of said skirt but the last time they were popular. She’d never favoured them herself. But Mary had. And those skirts were so easy to push up over skinny, ration-starved hips. They wore miniskirts with turtlenecks back then, which made it easier to hide the bite marks. What would all her neat, smiling colleagues think of that? That was not the Gertrude they knew.

Mary did share some of Gertrude’s more pedestrian enjoyments, although her taste in books ran to the antique and she prefered ink pens. Always more dramatic, more mysterious. The miniskirts were not for the eyes of men; they were for the way that the eyes of men followed her. A small dose of power. Mary had never been pretty. The new fashions gave her a chance to show off an admittedly beautiful pair of legs and Mary, above all else, enjoyed power and more importantly, novelty, so she wore them. Back in the early days she had enjoyed brief fumbles with the male staff but neither the fumbles, Mary’s interest and then their careers at the Institute had lasted for long. Then Mary had discovered the archives and Gertrude and a new world of what was forbidden opened up to her.

They had met because of a book, of course. Gertrude had left the tea room only to be tapped on the shoulder.   
“You dropped this.”  
It was a copy of The Price of Salt; ancient, the cover ripped off. The girl who’d handed it to her was small and ferret like. The comparison was even more apt when she smiled; sharp teeth and cruel, clever eyes.   
“Thank you.” Gertrude took the book back.   
“That’s not a book you see often. Out of print, I believe.” Her voice was as soft as the whisper of pages turning.   
“Yes - I found it by accident.” She’d searched through every secondhand bookshop in London to find a copy after hearing about it from a friend.   
“ I’ve read it,” the girl said, staring up at Gertrude.   
“Did you like it?”  
“I thought it was interesting.”

“I liked the happy ending,” Gertrude said. She felt stupid.   
“I did too,” the girl replied. She licked her thin lips. “It’s a rare thing. I’m Mary, by the way. Mary Kaey.” She was clearly waiting for some sort of reaction, but Gertrude hadn’t been there long enough to recognise the name.   
“Gertrude Robinson,”   
“Nice to meet you.”

Mary was a junior researcher and Gertrude had come in as an archival assistant. They were similar ages, with similar interests. The Magnus Institute, creaking old monster that it was, had little time for young female academics, even ones with a pedigree as impressive as Mary’s. They are cheaper to hire and are more likely to put up with the drudgery. In theory, anyway. Both Mary and Gertrude have a well developed sense of self-worth and come crashing up against the old boys. It’s not a glorious victory for feminism; rather two very clever young women managing to outmaneuver some rather unworldly old men. They win; Mary is promoted and Gertrude becomes Head Archivist. But their success sets them apart from the others.

The evenings can be long and dull in London if you don’t know anyone; or if, like Mary, you have a demanding and overprotective mother. But even Mrs. Kaey will let her daughter out with a sensible young woman friend who is deeply passionate about books and the Magnus Institute. Mary sits there, clearly fuming, as Gertrude and Mrs. Kaey exchange pleasantries. But Gertrude is not as unworldly as she appears. She knows people and how to get things and where to go. And they go down together, changing out of their work clothes at Gertrude’s flat and get lost in the wild, mad streets of Soho. 

Some memories are sharper than others. The men they occasionally shared - it was the late sixties, after all - have blurred into each other. They’d take turns with him then turf him out onto the street. Gertrude’s bed wasn’t big enough for three. Looking back, Gertrude can’t really remember how that particular habit had started. Probably they were both drunk or high somewhere and the pickings were slim. She couldn’t imagine losing her...friend over some man, so perhaps they decided that it was better this way. Despite neither of them being attractive the lure of two women had been too much to resist. 

Of course, Mary preferred watching rather than participating and even more predictably had grown bored with the business after a while. She was growing bored of Gertrude too, which wouldn’t do. Mary had so much to tell her still, and even though Mary could be incredibly irritating the things that she knew were just as captivating as any of her other charms. 

That lead to Gertrude pushing Mary up against a wall one day and lifting that miniskirt over her hips. Mary just smirked; clearly something she’d been expecting for a while. Not expecting the roughness of it, though. Part of Gertrude knew this was calculated. Mary had presumably had soft and loving and had no time for it. So it was tactical, rather than...but she had enjoyed it, hadn’t she? The feel of Mary’s thin hair in her hands as she yanked her head back. Mary’s gasp as Gertrude’s hand slipped between her thighs. And leaving the clever, cruel Mary Kaey panting with frustration as she turned around and left when someone called her name at the top of the archive stairs. 

Mary turned up at her flat later than evening. She had a book with her. God knows where she got it from, although a book like that being in Mary’s possession shouldn’t have surprised her.   
“Let’s open a page at random,” Mary hissed into her ear as they’d crashed backwards into the wall. “And see what we find.”   
Gertrude pulled away from her to close the door. She took the book and did open it at random, revealing something that was both obscene and anatomically impossible, not the least because the anatomy involved wasn’t present in this instance. So she threw the book on the floor, ignoring Mary’s glare, and pushed her back up against the wall.

This time it was Mary’s hands in her hair, yanking painfully. Gertrude’s knees began to ache after a while but changing position would have been a sign of weakness so she kept at it until Mary tensed and tensed and then suddenly went boneless and slid down the wall once Gertrude released her. Gertrude wiped her mouth.   
“I expect you to return the favour,” she said.   
“And if I don’t?”  
“You know that this isn’t how this works.”  
“Why are you making the rules?” Mary looked angry, which was good. The flush suited her.   
“Because I’m stronger,” she said. “And you like it. You like me to-”  
She almost said force, and winced internally. No one could force Mary Kaey to do anything she didn’t want to do. And Gertrude wasn’t the type to force. Was she? The person she became around Mary was starting to become something she found increasingly disquieting. But those were thoughts for another day. Mary was pushing the hem of her nightdress up and there was a bed a few feet away. She almost had to drag Mary off the floor and onto it, made all the more difficult because Mary was using a combination of fingers and tongue and god help her, nails, because she obviously felt she had something to prove. After Mary had finished with her, Gertrude retrieved the book and opened another page at random. This time the anatomical configuration was a lot more agreeable. There would be no miniskirts or short sleeves in either of their foreseeable futures; Gertrude wondered if she’d be scarred forever. Certainly the sheets wouldn’t be suitable for anything but rags. 

Eventually Mary dozed off, which meant Gertrude could examine the book more closely. The...illustrations had been haphazardly glued over the top of certain pages, leaving only fragments of text at the edges. The surviving pages were interesting reading. A biography of one of Mary’s ancestors, she presumed, a man who had consorted with witches. She flicked through the book. One particular picture caught her eye; the elegance contrasted with the rest of the crude illustrations, but the subject matter was...disturbing. And Gertrude was not easily shocked. 

Mary stirred. She rolled over and nibbled at Gertrude’s ear, then at the side of her neck. Despite her exhaustion (and much to her irritation) Gertrude felt a flash of sharp heat. Mary paused to see what she was looking at and giggled.  
“The dream of the fisherman’s wife,” she said. “Quite something, isn’t it? Although I only know its title in English.”  
“Can I ask why you’ve chosen to glue smutty pictures over your great-great-grandfather’s biography?”  
“Oh, it wasn’t me. I think Father did it. He didn’t want to throw the book away, since Mother would notice, but he didn’t want me to read parts of it. He thought it would give me ideas.”  
“Why these pictures?” Mary’s hands were stroking her inner thighs.  
“Because a good girl would be shocked and drop the book without reading the rest of it. Possibly get rid of it.”  
“It seems to have given you plenty of ideas anyway.”  
“Mmm.” Mary moved so she was straddling Gertrude’s hips. She plucked the book out of Gertrude’s hands and placed it on the bedside table. Gertrude wasn’t quite sure what this position was supposed to achieve but she got a good view of Mary’s naked torso which was a damn sight better than a woman engaged in coitus with an octopus.   
“I’m not sure I want to know what ideas that particular picture gave you,” she said. Mary rolled her eyes.  
“It’s a fairly common theme in Japanese erotica. So I’m told.”  
“Told by whom?”  
“Nathan Fletcher.”  
“The skinny one from accounts?”  
“The same. He’s a proper dark horse, that one.”  
“I suppose,” Gertrude said, running her nails up Mary’s sides, “That I might be a dark horse as well.”  
“Might just be me,” Mary said. “I tend to bring strange things out in people.”

So that was the first time. There were more after, but not many. Once memorably at the New Year’s party, when they had been caught, half naked, up against the clean white tile of the ladies’ washrooms. Mary had insisted the other woman stay and watch.  
“After all,” said Mary, “This will probably be Lottie’s only chance. You’re getting married in May, aren’t you?”  
Charlotte nodded mutely. Her eyes were dark, pupils blown.   
“You’ll never get another chance, Lottie.” Mary was smiling. “So enjoy it.”  
Gertrude didn’t protest. Part of her liked the unbridled spite of it; Mary had so little shame and that was intoxicating. The other part liked showing someone else what she could do to Mary, too-clever Mary who thought she was better. 

She was willing to indulge Mary because of what Mary gave her. The books that she brought in. Not important books, though. Just interesting ones. Useful but not unique. They lead her on to other things, to other interests and a different world opened up to her; dark and strange and terrifying. Gertrude was starting to realise that what she thought would be an interesting sideline was starting to eat more and more of her time. She found herself hating to leave her Archive - because it was hers now, no matter what anyone said. She said this to Mary once and Mary laughed like it was something she’d known all along. 

Mary’s behaviour was stretching everyone’s tolerance, which really meant something in a place like the Magnus Institute. She kept on pushing the boundaries: why this and why not that. What does this do. How can we use this? Why can’t we use this? Far, far too many questions. And the suspicion that Mary wouldn’t take no for an answer. Then there was An Incident and Mary was gone. All of her papers were destroyed after she left. Gertrude heard the news with barely a stir. 

They had further run ins, of course. Mary was just too entwined with the Leitners and everything else that went with them. They found themselves staring at each other across an increasingly widening chasm - not that they had been that compatible in the first place - as Mary took her position and Gertrude took hers. That desire for chaos and novelty that Gertrude had found so compelling when they were young quickly became wearying when you were in opposition. 

The world turned, the Institute changed. Gertrude saw fifty years in as Archivist; long years, interesting years. She outlived most of the staff from her and Mary’s time. New faces appeared so frequently that she rarely bothered to learn anyone’s names; all she had was the work because that’s all she needed. She had assumed Mary would be the same; her fascinations and desires not compatible with anything approaching a family life. But then she had a little boy, whom she referred to as “My Gerard” with a sickly, maternal pride when they met again, shortly after Leitner. Gertrude caught a glimpse of the boy when Institute business took her to Pinhole Books; darker than his mother, lanky and ungainly. Mary would coo over him the same way her own mother did; something that young Mary resented and railed against. Gertrude was glad she never had children of her own. The position of Archivist was as much of a strange inheritance as she was ever going to leave behind. 

She never looked back on their early relationship with shame; when you live for fifty years in the chilly arms of the Magnus Institute a problematic sexual relationship early in your twenties doesn’t trouble your sleep. What happened all those years ago had become enmeshed with everything else; the Leitners, the Institute, the changing of the guard and the increasing darkening of the world. There was no need to speak of it; a look in Mary’s eye would occasionally remind her that there had been something between them and perhaps the same was true of her. But those looks could not be recorded and thus, for all intents and purposes, were lost to posterity. In Gertrude’s world that which was unwritten might as well not have happened at all.


End file.
